Colossians 1:15-20 | The Preeminence of Christ

INTRODUCTION

Let’s open the Bible now to Colossians 1:15-20.

Last week, we saw Paul’s prayer that the Colossian Christians would be filled and strengthened with the knowledge of God. Then, as if answering his prayer, Paul praises Jesus through words that can’t do anything but fill us and strengthen us in the knowledge of God.

Some scholars believe this passage is a quotation from an ancient Christian hymn. Maybe some of your Bibles even have it formatted as poetry. That may be true. Whatever the case, we’ve moved beyond introductions now, and Paul launches into a description of Jesus that stands as one of the most majestic in all of the Bible.

The most important person in existence is lifted up, and like a diamond, he is turned so that we see his many facets of glory.

 So, let’s read it now.

         15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

      16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him

      17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

      18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the       dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

      19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

      20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

This is God’s word.

Here’s how a passage like this really helps us. We live our days mired in the details of life. We go to work, take the kids to school or go to school ourselves, do our chores, watch TV, and so on. Throughout our day, we are bombarded with news and information and so forth. We walk around with our heads down. We look at our screens. We look at what’s in front of us. And all the stuff of life starts to weigh heavy upon us. Our vision gets small and focused. Before long, we start redefining our life according to what we see in front of us. That can lead to several problems. Small things become big things. Anxiety grows. Wrong, inflated views of ourselves increase. We start to define life on our terms. The more inward-focused we get, the more out of focus ultimate reality gets. We start to believe something other than Jesus is at the center of the universe.

Then we come to a passage like this, and we are confronted with a God so big and mighty and glorious that we start to rethink what really matters. We start to see that ultimate reality is not what we make it. Ultimate reality is who God is. So who is he?

We’ll organize the passage this way:

1. The Supremacy of Jesus (verses 15-17)

2. The Leadership of Jesus (verse 18)

3. The Reconciliation of Jesus (verses 19-20)

Just so you know, my first point is as long as the final two points. So when you look at your watch when we get to point 2, don’t worry.

THE SUPREMACY OF JESUS (verses 15-17)

Let’s not forget our context. The Colossians were confronted with destructive teaching about Christianity. Paul writes this letter to defeat that wrong teaching. So how did he do that? By lifting Jesus up for the church to see. That’s always the best way. When we see Jesus, it’s easy to see wrong theology. But when we take our eyes off Jesus, all kinds of wrong things can slip into our minds and find a home there. What these Colossians needed, and what we need, is a big vision of the glorious Jesus. We need to see how sufficient he really is. We do not need anything else. Jesus is enough. When we start thinking something else is better, something else is needed, we need to come back and stare at Jesus.

So let’s start staring at him.

We’ll take it bit by bit. Look at the first half of verse 15. “He is the image of the invisible God.”

This is not the only place in the Bible we see this language. John said something similar in the opening chapter of his gospel. “No one has ever seen God. God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:18). The author of Hebrews uses a similar phrase when he refers to Jesus as “the radiance of the glory of God, and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus himself said in John 14:9, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

So what does it mean that Jesus is the image of God? It means Jesus represents God. He shows us who God is. How does he do that? I have four children. Two take after me, and two look like Sarah. Andy, for example, is basically the spitting image of me at his age. Is that what Paul means—that Jesus looks like his Father? Well, yes, and no. We can’t say that in the physical sense because God the Father is invisible. So Jesus must image him in another way. What way? In his essence. In his righteousness, goodness, wisdom, power, holiness—in all the invisible attributes.

Now, in a way, I think this helps us see the point even more clearly. If my son looks like me, you can say he is an image of me, but that’s only surface level. Do we share the same temperament? Are we the same person underneath our skin? With Jesus, the answer is yes. Everything that God is, Jesus is. He just puts a face on God in the incarnation. Jesus shows us God because—and here’s the point—he is God. When we look at Jesus, we are looking at God.

In Jesus, God becomes very definite to us. In Jesus, we can point to a specific person who lived in real space and time. The name “god” is used all the time, but how do we know we’re all talking about the same god? The answer is who do we say Jesus is. Is he God? If the god we talk about doesn’t look like Jesus, then it isn’t the true God we’re talking about. The Bible makes it clear: if you accept Jesus, you accept God; if you don’t accept Jesus, you don’t accept God. No more than any other person, God is not someone we get to define. He defines himself, and he reveals himself in the visible Jesus.

Now, Jesus is also the image of God in another way. Think back to the beginning of the Bible when God created everything. In what way did he create man and woman? In his image. Our sin kind of messed that up. We’re not very good image-bearers, are we? But what about Jesus? The Bible tells us he never sinned. But in the incarnation, as the eternal God stepped into our world and took on flesh, he became the perfect image of God in the Genesis sense as well. He became the perfect image-bearer we failed to be.

So Jesus is both the image of the invisible God and the perfect image of humanity, made in God’s image.

Therefore, we have a double blessing as we behold Jesus. We see God as he truly is, and we see ourselves as we will one day truly be. We see God because Jesus is God. We see ourselves as we will one day be because Jesus, in his humanity, became the perfect image-bearer and showed us who we will become in him by the power of his resurrection. So as we follow Jesus, we are following God, and he is making us more our true selves. Jesus does not remove our humanity from us. He gives it back, redeemed and restored. By the way, this is how we find our truest self—by following Jesus and letting him mend our broken humanity.

Paul goes on. Look at the second half of verse 15. Jesus is “the firstborn of all creation.”

This is an easy phrase to misunderstand. What is Paul really saying? Is he saying Jesus is the first created being? That’s what Jehovah’s Witnesses say today. But that’s not a new heresy. It’s an old one.

In the 4th century, there was a man named Arius who denied the deity of Jesus by asserting there was a time when the Son did not exist. In his desire to protect monotheism, he said that while God has always existed, the Son has not. There was a point at which the Father became a Father. He didn’t deny the holiness of Jesus, just the infinity and equality of Jesus with God. Now, the Bible clearly presents God as a Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But to Arius, the Trinity was not an eternal reality.

This heresy, known as Arianism, spread around the ancient world until, eventually, at the council of Nicaea in 325 AD, the Church officially distinguished between two words that Arius smushed together to mean the same thing. Those two words were “begotten” and “made.” Begotten is a biblical word. You recognize it from maybe the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…” Does that mean God made Jesus? Arius thought so. But if that is true, it means Jesus isn’t really God because he is a creation of God, and the created can never be the creator. There is a difference in nature. But the Bible does not distinguish the nature of the Son from the nature of the Father nor from the nature of the Spirit. The Triune God is one in nature.

So how did the council of Nicaea resolve this? They resolved it by expounding on the word begotten and how it related to God the Father and God the Son. The key distinction comes down to a doctrine known as the eternal generation of the Son. That’s a good five-dollar theological word for you. Obviously, to be a son means to be from a father. But when talking about God, does it mean the Father created the Son, or does it mean something else? In God, this generation is an eternal act, not as an act of creation but as an act of eternal reality in himself. If Jesus was never sent into the world to save it, he would still be the Son because his sonship does not depend on creation at all. He is the eternal Son from the Father regardless of creation. Jesus has always existed as God, with God. There was never a time when the Father was not the Father, and there was never a time when the Son was not the Son, and there was never a time when the Spirit was not the Spirit. The Son is called the Son because he is eternally generated from the Father, not as a different creation of him, but from the same eternal, infinite, immutable, impassible, divine essence of God. To affirm Jesus as he really is requires we affirm his whole divinity—he is of the same essence as God the Father and God the Spirit.

They hashed all this out at the council of Nicaea. Whatever we might think of ancient people, we can’t say they were dumb, can we? This is hard stuff!

At the council of Nicaea, they wrote the Nicene Creed. It is one of the most important statements of faith in Church history. That creed says Jesus is “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.”

Now, in a way, that’s a sidebar to our text today, but it’s important we understand Jesus was not made. Jesus is the eternal God. There are other clues in our text today that affirm this. For example, I couldn’t help but notice a phrase in verses 15, 17, and 18—“he is.” He is the image of God. He is before all things. He is the head of the body. Jesus is. Not he was or he will be, but he is. He has existed eternally with God, as God, in the person of the Son. He is as the Father is, the great I AM.

So if Paul isn’t saying Jesus is the first created being, then what is he saying? He’s using firstborn language in the sense of priority. In the ancient world, if you were the firstborn, everything was yours by right. That’s what Paul means. Everything belongs to Jesus by right as the eternal Son, and because he is God, he is the ruler and creator of it all.

That’s why Paul says in verse 16—notice the prepositions—“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” If all things were created by him and through him, he cannot be among those things created because then it wouldn’t be all things. It would be almost all things. But Jesus stands above all.

Notice that Paul includes heaven and earth, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities. He doesn’t leave anything out, does he? As Abraham Kuyper said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” Jesus is supreme over it all. Jesus rules heaven just as he rules earth. Jesus rules over things we can’t even see, just as he rules over what we can see. There are things in the depths of the ocean and in the expanse of space we haven’t yet seen, but Jesus is lord of those things too. There is no power anywhere that Jesus isn’t supreme over.

We owe all we have and all we see and all we are and all that is to Jesus, the Son of God, the King of the universe, the Lord of all. So, as Paul says in verse 17, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Without Jesus, this entire universe ceases to exist. As John Calvin once said, “If God should withdraw his hand a little, all things would immediately perish and dissolve into nothing.”

I want you to see one more thing before we move on. Notice it says all things were created not only by him and through him but also for him. Let’s personalize this a minute. You were created for Jesus. He cares about you because you belong to him. Your life has meaning, and that meaning is not defined by you; it is defined by Jesus. You are not ultimately in charge of your life, and that is very good news because you—the real you—were created for Jesus. He loves you.

Jesus is supreme. He will always be enough. If you are a Christian, there is nothing else you need but Jesus. If you are not a Christian, there is nothing else you need but Jesus. He is the goal and purpose and joy of life.

So that’s the supremacy of Jesus. Next, the leadership of Jesus.

THE LEADERSHIP OF JESUS (verse 18)

Jesus is not only the creator and ruler of all. He is also the leader of worldwide redemption.

In verse 18, we zoom in from all of creation to a specific new creation in Jesus, the church. Paul picks up on a common biblical metaphor for the church: a body. Jesus is the head of that body.

This is fascinating to me. The glorious Jesus, who is supreme over all created things, takes shape in this world in a specific body. What is that body? It’s the Church. Isn’t that fascinating? Of all things he could inhabit, Jesus chose the church. Think of all the governments with worldwide influence. Think of all the famous people. Think of all the nations expanding throughout the world. Think of all the power structures. And what does Jesus choose to be the head of? What body is his? It is the Church.

Here's what that means. If you are a member of Christ’s church, you are a member of Christ’s body, which means you are joined to the One Supreme Lord of all, and he has chosen you to be a part of his cosmic plan in his own body. Your very small, very regular, very ordinary church life is not so small and regular and ordinary as you think. It is as big as Jesus is.

We have to keep reading to see what this means. “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”

Again, we have this firstborn language. What does it mean here? In coming to earth, Jesus was bringing something new into the world. Something of which he would be the first of, the beginning of. What was it?

Think of the storyline of the Bible. God created the world and placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and then what happened? They sinned. They cut themselves off from God, and God banished them from the Garden. From that day forward, the world continued in sin. But God did not give up on his people. He planned to send the Son to redeem and restore this broken world and to create a new creation called the Church through which his plan of redemption would flow into the darkness of the world.

How did that new creation come about? When Jesus came to earth, he came as the new Adam. The Bible talks about this. Ladies, you’ll see it in your Bible study when you get to Romans 5. As the new Adam, Jesus came to undo the fall. When he went into the wilderness after his baptism, what did he do? He cast Satan out by the power of the word. He did what Adam should have done in the Garden. When Jesus touched the sick and healed them, what was he doing? He was undoing the effects of sin and death. When Jesus rejected temptation and stayed faithful to God, what was he doing? He was living the life no other human ever did.

Theologians call that the active obedience of Christ. Without it, we have no hope. But there is another obedience of Christ to which this passage pushes us, the passive obedience of Christ—his death on the cross. When Jesus went to the cross, what was he doing? He was fulfilling the sacrificial system, dying on our behalf to pay for our sins and bring us back to God. Then, three days later, he rose from the grave and became the firstborn from the dead. That doesn’t mean he was the first to be raised from the dead. Jesus raised Lazarus. It means Jesus was the first raised from the dead in this way: in perfection and in glory and in the finished work of the cross. The new creation God was creating came through the death of Christ.

As the firstborn of the dead, Jesus ushered in the new age of man—one where glorified bodies do not grow sick or weary or die, where the life we were intended to have in the beginning is given back but now better than before because of the story that’s now been told. This is not a zombie Jesus merely coming back from the dead to live in a half-life kind of existence. This is the redeeming Jesus ushering in new, abundant life as it was meant to be.

Jesus’s resurrection is the beginning of the new creation. It is the spark that sets the world on fire. And what did it take? It took his death. The preeminence of Jesus comes not only from who he is in himself but also from the work he has done in his death and resurrection. No one can beat him now. Sin couldn’t do it. Satan couldn’t do it. Death couldn’t do it. Jesus rules. And Jesus leads his new creation, the Church, using his body to bring the gospel to a dying world.

That big gospel story is reflected in the Church. Your little church life isn’t so little, is it?

So that’s the leadership of Jesus. Now, our final point: the reconciliation of Jesus.

THE RECONCILIATION OF JESUS (verses 19-20)

Here is the end to which this passage takes us: the reconciliation of everything to Jesus Christ.

We have not left the earthly work of Jesus in these verses. They are still firmly in mind. “In him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” The past tense doesn’t mean the fullness of God no longer dwells in Jesus. It does and always has and always will. But the work of Jesus on earth in his life, death, and resurrection is the focus. Jesus came with the fullness of God’s will and mission and purpose to do the work of reconciliation.

What is Jesus reconciling to himself? Verse 20 says “all things.” The gospel of Jesus is that big. It’s bigger than you and me. Its effects reach all the way to everything in creation. The Bible tells us that creation waits in eager expectation and that creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth (Romans 8:19,22). But Jesus is reconciling it all to himself. How? This is really important. Listen to this. Jesus reconciles all things to himself by reconciling us to himself. It starts with setting humanity right with God. We are The great problem in the world. When humanity fell, the world fell. All of creation was affected by our sinfulness. For the ground and the trees and the animals and planets and everything else to be made right again, we must be made right. Jesus must reconcile us to himself, and as he does, all things come along too.

But this reconciliation doesn’t just happen. Something must occur for it to come to pass. What is it? The cross of Christ. Jesus made peace by the blood of his cross.

Why his blood? It seems drastic, doesn’t it? Jesus is over all things. Could he not bring reconciliation about another way? The answer must be no because the cross stands at the center of history. The path to heaven is paved by the blood of Jesus.

It had to be this way. We needed Jesus’s blood to atone for our sins. It had to be God’s initiative. It had to be God’s work. We could never attain reconciliation by ourselves. Our blood isn’t sufficient to atone for our sins. The blood of bulls and goats isn’t sufficient to atone for our sins. Only the blood of Jesus, the perfect man, was enough. The only way we could be set right with God is for God to do exactly what he did in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is not that this was merely the best way; it was the only way. There is no other. Our sin is that big. Only Jesus could pay the price.

The reconciliation of Jesus not only brings things back into proper order also gives us something else that we can take hold of right now. Look at the end of verse 20, “making peace by the blood of his cross.” We have peace with God. We were under the wrath of God, but the full measure of that wrath was poured out on Jesus at the cross, and he no longer stands against us because of our sin. In Christ, God has declared peace over us. He has brought us back to himself. Our only part in that peace treaty is the acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus on our behalf.

So here’s what that means for all who trust in Christ today. We all have many sins. But each of us has at least one sin that nags at us still. We can’t seem to get over it. We struggle to accept forgiveness. It looms so large in our minds. It’s the reason we sometimes believe the gospel for others but not for ourselves. It’s the sin we don’t want to think about, but we can’t help thinking about it, usually at night when we can’t sleep. You’re probably thinking of it right now, and a twinge of guilt and shame rises to the surface of your heart.

What has God done with that great big sin? He has paid for it on the cross of Christ. He has forgiven it on the cross of Christ. By that sin, you disconnected yourself from God. But by the blood of Jesus, God reconnected you to himself. He reconciled you to himself. It is not only as if that sin never existed, it is now as if you always obeyed just as Jesus did. You are loved like Jesus, by Jesus, for Jesus’s sake. You are as secure as Christ is. Jesus reconciled you by his blood, and your sin is paid in full.

But the gospel is bigger than just me and you. It is Christ reconciling the world to himself. The Bible says that one day, “Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, [will say], ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’” (Revelation 5:13). Isaiah says, “The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:12). As we are reconciled to Christ, creation is reconciled to Christ, and it rejoices. I don’t know what it looks like for the trees to clap. Maybe there really are Ents in this world (Lord of the Rings fans). Whatever that looks like, I can’t wait to see it. In Christ, this broken world will be restored better than before as he reconciles all things to himself.

There is nothing in this world so broken that Jesus can’t mend it. That’s what it means to say he’s a redeemer. Jesus fixes things. He restores things. He renews things. Because he is Lord over all things, and all things are being reconciled to himself. He is God, and he will bring it all to pass.

Thanks for staring at Jesus with me this morning. He’s good, amen?

Let’s pray.